We all go through changes, and recently I went through a period where I gained 15 lbs.  Right now I am 140 lbs and my goal is to get back down to 125.  Rather than doing it myself I wanted to show everyone what exactly I do to lose it because it can be a very confusing process.  So, just keep checking my blogs to see what I do each week as I keep you informed of my diet plan and my workouts. 

…of the calories you eat.  Remember that a large part of fat loss (and fat gain) is in the quality of the calories you eat.  Imagine this: you and your best friend want to lose 20 lbs each.  You go online and find the most reliable weight loss sites around, and find out how to calculate the exact amount of calories you need to consume each day to lose weight based on your height and body weight.  Seems simple enough right?  So you both need to consume, say, 1500 calories per day.  Your friend decides she’s going to eat healthy foods like chicken breast, brown rice, yams, oatmeal, and shellfish.  But you decide that you would rather eat the foods you crave, and since you only need to worry about staying under 1500 calories, you feel that you can skip breakfast, have a McDonald’s quarter pounder with medium fries for lunch, and 2 slices of chocolate cake for dinner.  You only came up to about 1000 calories for your day- that’s great right?  You should lose even more weight than your friend who ate 1500 calories of healthy food!

Unfortunately…no.  See, your body uses certain foods more efficiently than others.  While high fiber carbs and good quality protein will slow digestion and eliminate blood sugar spikes, processed, fatty, and simple carb-ridden foods will do the opposite.  And when your blood sugar spikes, you only have a limited window to use those calories, or else they’ll be stored as fat.  Plus, since foods that lack fiber are digested quickly, your body’s energy is used primarily for digestion and the fat burning process is temporarily turned off…leading your body to store that food as fat.

Bottom line: the quality of your food is just as important, if not more important, than the quantity.